i do understand why a lot of people are bitching about this...but if you think about the spirit of what raven is trying to accomplish, i see no easy solution in reconciling a style of play that fosters dueling with a style of play that fosters ctf/team ffa without getting too complicated.

my personal vote has been, and still is, to A) increase the damage on some of the lightsaber swings a bit and/or especially B) make dismemberment standard. would anyone be opposed to standard dismemberment? it'd sure make kills a lot faster when using the saber, would still cater to duelists, and would help out the pace of CTF games and such. If the saber were capable of being that deadly (and say dismemberment operated A) in the context of a clean hit and B) was proportional to stance...ie fastest stance least likely to dismember, heavy most likely), I think a lot of complaints would go away. further, certain items like ammo consumption could be 'un-nerfed' a bit to compensate for the improved ability of the saber.

Instead of endlessly bitching or saying the game should be reverted to 1.02, i think people need to figure out what precisely will be a compromise for most players...

this thread is for constructive ideas...no flames either way please :)

Prowl lightstar

05-13-2002, 01:36 PM

I think Medium stance should do more damage, i hear it only does the same maximum damage as the light stance. It should do more damage and be a little faster IMO.

Also where have all the cool moves gone? You know matrix style running on the walls, backflips, flying instead of jumping etc?

Sarcastro

05-13-2002, 02:12 PM

I posted this in another thread, but it's much more at home here:
---repost---
First off, let me say I prefer 1.03 to 1.02, especially for duelling which is mostly what I do. But that doesn't mean it can't be improved. Now, let's be constructive here.

What's better about 1.03, apart from bug fixes and DFA dix, is cheifly the increased blocking. Yes, the increased blocking is better. If you charge someone head-on and start swinging wildly, and they patiently concentrate on simply defending and facing you, they SHOULD be able to block darn near everything you throw at them with the exeption of a few penetrating moves. The penetrating moves have penalties of their own (leave you open to counterattack) and so are balanced.

At the same time, what needs fixing from version 1.03 is....there's too much blocking The patch moved it in the right direction but overshot the optimal skill/fun point (and it's ALL about fun, make no mistake.) What I see on the public duel servers now is basically that the standard saber swings are almost ignored by the top duelists. The penetrating moves (unblockable or at least partly so) are used almost exclusively: blue lunge, backstab for all 3 stances, DFA, kick. In a duel it just isn't fruitful to land 1 out of every 5 saber blows, Because you're dead when the other guy lands 5 out of 5 kicks or 1 backstab.

Now, by no means am I suggesting a return to 1.02 blocking. That made it far too easy to win by just swinging wildly. THe answer I think is to make the blocking just as effective as in 1.03, but more difficult for the defender to use effectively. One way to implement this would be to decrease the blocking arc. Right now it looks like blocking is effective in the entire from 180 degrees. If this was 90 degrees (or even less!), a defender would really have to focus on turning towards the incoming saber swing in order to block it. At 60 degrees you could be looking right at someone, but a left to roght or right to left swing might still hit you if you didn't turn towards it. In this system, a skilled defender can still block dasrn near everything, but they have to be SKILLED to do so.

I also think the original damage levels for saber worked quit well: 30/60/100 for light/medium/heavy. With a 60-90 degree blocking arc and the old 30/60/100 damage, you could still have long fights between 2 skilled saberists who took pains not to be hit. The regular swings would be useful again, the special moves wouldn't need to be changed, and yet a skilled player could bring down a lesser player relatively quickly with the various attacks.

I believe these changes would bring balance to the force.
---end repost---

Belive it or not, i have yet MORE to say. Let's look at how the exisiting issues in 1.03 would be addressed by the above fixes (decreased blocking asrc and increased saber damage):

Issue: Duels take forever.

This one's easy. With decreased blocking and increased damage duels will obviously be more lethal, but still allow skilled players to defend well against people who run in swinging wildly.

Issue: sabers ineffective in FFA

Another easy one. The increased damage (same as 1.02 damage)makes sabers just as effective against gunners as they were in 1.02. The suggested blocking makes sabers more effective against saberists than in 1.03, if not quite as effective as 1.02. But that's ok! This just means that for gunners, the defense against sabers is Range, and for sabers the defense is blocking skill. Gunners who get too close are in trouble. Saberists who ignore blocking are in trouble.

Issue: Special moves (including backstabs, kick) are used exclusively

With the saber damage returned to 1.02-like levels, the standard swings are dangerous once again, so it isn't necessary to depend ony on specials for damage. Also with decreased blocking arc, it won't be necessary to depend on unblockable or mostly unblockable moves, because you'll be able to hit with the normal swings.

Any more issues? Those are the main ones i can think of right now. Constructive feedback welcome.

Sarcastro

05-13-2002, 02:20 PM

Just thought of another one.

Issue: stances are not balanced

This is actually addressed really well by the blocking/damage suggestions I've made.

Light is effective because with the spinning and speed of the strikes, it should be harder to turn your smaller blocking arc to defend. However damage is still only 30ish.

Heavy is effective because of the mega-damage. Also, the overhead chops allow you to penetrate defenses even when your opponent is blocking well. Tradeoff: Slow and easy to turn to block (even though blocking doesn't always save you from the overheads).

Medium is effective because it's a good balance between light/heavy. If someone misses with a heavy attack, counterattack with a medium slash. If someone comes spinning at you in light, the range of medium should be able to deal damage without leaving you as open as heavy would.

Demise_SOK

05-13-2002, 02:28 PM

I would like to see the block code toned down to pre-patch level so people I out-manuevered to get a swing at won't block it 'automatically' as oppose to by their own defensive skill.

I would also like to see saber damage reverted to pre-patch level of 40/60/100 based on blue/yellow/red stances.

Collision needs to be reassesed as well so that full saber hits knock opponents back or a full block of a swing will push back and seem to stun opponents. Collision also needs to be more precise, I still find swings seeming to go through people in combat.

The idea that a saber isn't as deadly at the swings begining and its end is bunk in my opinion. Should there be a decrease in range at start and end of swing? Yes. But, sabers should still deliver their requisite damage if a hit is scored.

Backstab needs to be made blockable or should deliver less damage if the person on the recieving end is immobile and facing the back of the backstab initiator. Also, the blocking code needs to be assessed when people are using 'special moves' like backstab, med. twirl or DFA, the ability to score a hit on these individuals at the end of the move needs to be increased- perhaps adding additional fractions of a second of immobility for jedi's coming out of these moves.

Crouching fighter (ass fighters) should recieve a serious defensive penalty to forward overhead swings. Be it a chance to be knocked down or for overhead or forward swings to make it through crouching saber defense easier.

The force power absorb needs to be tweaked. Perhaps, toning down the amount of force it absorbs from opponents or increasing the speed at which the ability drains away if no one is using force powers against the absorber.

Those are just some ideas. I am sure with more testing under the new patch more will come to mind.

Prowl lightstar

05-13-2002, 02:47 PM

I agree with everything on here so far, I love the 1.03 patch, but these improvements would make 1.04 "cocked, locked and ready to rock."

Sarcastro

05-13-2002, 03:30 PM

Demise, I mostly agree, with this key difference:

You said you'd like to see "block code toned down to pre-patch level so people I out-manuevered to get a swing at won't block it 'automatically' as oppose to by their own defensive skill."

I agree, it needs to be modified so that skillful maneuvering pays off. But I don't think this was the case in the pre-patch version. I haven't played 1.02 sine the patch came out but I seem to remember that it was difficult to block anything consistently. A skillful defender concentrating only on blocking should be able to defend themselves pretty well from an agressive attacker, and I just don't think you could do this in 1.02. Of course in 1.03 it's all too easy to defend against the standard saber swings. What we need is a compromise: the consistency and non-randomness of 1.03 blocking, but with a reduced blocking farc so that skillful turning is required for proper defense. The the battle becomes a matter of attacker's skill in mixing up saber swings vs. defender's skill in turning to meet them. You have to defend differently against a left-to-right swing than you do against a right-to-left or overhead or backstab swing. (Just to clarify, a defender would tilt up to block overhead and down to block low attacks like crouching swings.)